The Dreaded "Sleep Training"

That's what I call it now, "sleep training."  Sounds much less cruel than "crying it out," don't you think??

It all started back in September when Rudy was cutting teeth.  The pain made him wake up often and we all fell into bad habits (I fully support and will always wake up with and comfort my child in pain or sickness, it's just the bad patterns that followed after the pain was gone that was the problem!).  Within a month I was about to lose my mind.  I had lost pretty much any hope of getting time to myself during the days and by bedtime, I was too tired to do anything but go right to bed, I was in Rudy's room until late at night, or I knew to get right to sleep because the odds of me being up at night with him were high.  His naps were not a guarantee and we HAD to lay with him until he fell asleep.  And it got to the point that sneaking out once he fell asleep was nearly impossible.  As soon as we moved or went to leave, he'd freak out and cry hysterically.  So our choices were to lay with him the entire nap, or he wouldn't get a nap.  Then usually in the middle of the night or early morning, he'd wake up crying and we would have to spend the rest of the "night" in his room with him or bring him in bed with us to avoid a freak out.  To make matters worse, with all this non-sleep we were all getting, we weren't in the best of moods.  Rudy was very impatient, threw a lot of fits, was so clingy and was just plain difficult.  And I was so worn down (and right in the middle of the horrible early pregnancy days) from it all!  We tried doing so many different things and made so many different excuses for him and us. 

We decided it was time to do something and stick to it.  We had to get back to how it used to be...the days of him wanting put straight in his crib while being wide awake, sleeping all night, and adults getting a "break."  And because of those days, we knew he knew how to go to sleep on his own, he'd just forgotten.

I turned to my trusty "Moms on Call" book and Rudy now falls asleep on his own (even kicks me out of his room pretty much right away), sleeps all night and until around 7 in the morning!  And naps are a breeze.  He usually sleeps at least 2 hours, sometimes 3.  And WOW!  What a difference in his general disposition and mood.  Good sleep makes a world of a difference!!  (And on a side note... when he wakes up, he picks out his clothes for the day and gets out a new diaper before he yells for us to come get him.  And being that his new favorite color is black, he usually has picked out a black shirt and black shorts.  He has yet to pick out pants to wear... him and his dad love their mesh shorts!)      

It was a rough few days when we first started the sleep training... listening to your baby cry is no fun.  Going into a room where the closet has pretty much been emptied and everything on the bed is on the floor is also no fun.  Or there was the night we left the "special stuff" (Vick's vapor rub) in his room on accident, only to find his entire face and hair line coated with special stuff the next morning.  But John and I powered through it, stuck to our plan and we are so glad we with the result!  Every day was better than the day before and we thought, "Why did we not do this sooner?!"  Less than a week later, I was doing a happy dance regularly!   

And God bless our Avery.  How that child can sleep through all of Rudy's antics blows my mind.  We are so thankful for her sleep patterns (...and please let the next one sleep like her!)!!